One leader in the race for the commercialization of electronic ink is E Ink, a company that has been working on this project since the beginning.

E Ink's system, which is actually being commercialized on a small scale, is based on the following design: individual pixels are created within microcapsules sandwiched between two electrodes; the microcapsules are filled with dark-colored particles and light-colored particles suspended in a liquid. When an electrical charge is passed through the electrodes the particles are drawn to the top of the pixel–either black or white depending on the charge distributed to the specific cell. This method has produced the ability to view text or grayscale images on a flexible medium with a minimum of electrical usage; however, the display rate is not fast enough to display video, a fact which has kept the E ink technology from taking off faster.

The new technology, which is being developed by Philips Electronics, uses a completely different system called electrowetting. In this process a white background is covered with a transparent electrode and then with a water-resistant plastic barrier; the pixels are attached to this barrier. Each pixel is filled with water and a drop of colored oil. When there is no electrical charge the oil coats the bottom of the pixel, displaying its color; but when an electrical charge is passed through the electrode the oil moves to one side, showing the white background.

The electrowetting process has a reflectivity percentage almost equal to paper, and 6 (or four) times higher than an LCD display:

One of the greatest leaps made by this technology, though, is in speed. The pixel changes in an electrowetting device occur in less than 10 milliseconds (comparable to a pixel-change rate of 25-50 milliseconds for LCD monitors), allowing for the viewing of videos.

JOSHUA'S OPINION
Talk about cool technology! The advances in this area are quite amazing, and I am anxious to see the applications that evolve from it.

From what I could tell the color process is not completely tested yet, but when it is all said and done this could change the face of just about everything. Imagine being able to buy a TV for your wall, or watching a movie at a theater with no projector. Imagine being able to read any fiction book with video clips interspersed from the movie, or for students, only having to take one book to your classes and just plugging it into your desk to keep up with the professor.

E Ink is working on commercializing its system, but I wonder what this will do to those goals. The company's technology is remarkably less refined than the electrowetting technology, but E Ink has already built an infrastructure and even released commercial products with its technology.

I also wonder a little bit about the durability of the products built with electrowetting technology. E Ink has produced what appear to be durable products, but they are all based on a metal backing—-definitely flexible, but not really paper. It will be interesting to see what types of material can accept Philips' process, and how much more like paper they are.

E-ink display(12:20pm EST Fri Sep 26 2003)I don't think E-ink will be bright enough for movie theaters, TVs, and such. Even if it was as bright as paper wouldn't you need to light it from the front to get the same effect. What good is an electronic screen if you still need to light it with one bright ass 150W bulb?

I think OLED is the HDTV/movie screen sized display technology to beat. It's equally visibloe in light or dark. E-ink sounds like it would be better for magazines, store displays, and things like that(like the stuff in the movie Minority Report).

I think one big advantage of e-ink for this type of application is that when you take power away the picture stays put. So for places that are well lit these things would use practically zero power.

Both OLED & E-ink are excellent technologies, imagine all the waste that will be eliminated with no more CRTs, LCDs, and megatons of paper clogging up the system. – by needs illumination

…(1:21pm EST Fri Sep 26 2003)BEWARE: Without our paper consuption trees will begin to take back our cities. They will rise like a Tsunami of dead to choke out the views of all the sky scrapers. They will try to fall on you and your family.

Say no to Electric Ink, Burn the trees! – by 2cent

Hmm(2:57pm EST Fri Sep 26 2003)It is strange to think of a device that requries power to be blank.

LOL to 2cent, those damn trees, good thing paper keeps them down.

Also, honestly, FYI off topic needs to get kicked off. He seriously needs to get over his beef against Microsoft.

fyi off topic, turn your computer off, get off your ass, and go for a walk, stop and smell the roses or enjoy a sunset, there are greater things in life to enjoy and worry about then Microsoft. – by Topher

good one.(7:24pm EST Fri Sep 26 2003)nice, WhatTheHellsTopicFor.

i think that e-ink and oleds will probably make e-books more viable (less clunky, especially if they're foldable), though marketing and other public implementation needs to improve imo. – by repairboy

ah…(12:22pm EST Sat Sep 27 2003)Isn't it great to just watch technology make leaps and bounds? – by Subwoofer

Fiction coming true(7:27pm EST Sat Sep 27 2003)Neal Stephenson has a couple great scenes in his _Diamond Age_ where different characters do serious computing using what appears to be single sheets of paper. How peculiar it reads to us contemporary cyber-geeks with our computers and pda's. How will we look so cool with sheets of “paper” again? – by sf_fan